Assessing the economic impact of diseases in Mediterranean grow-out farms culturing European sea bass

The aim of this work is to propose a novel and formal approach to evaluate the direct costs of diseases caused by different pathogens as well as their economic impact on typical Mediterranean grow-out farms culturing European sea bass under different scenarios of production related to the biomass produced (farm size) and the size of the fish produced (production strategy).

We employ a deterministic static model to simulate the annual income statement of those facilities to evaluate the direct costs caused by different diseases as well as, through a partial budget and sensitivity analyses, the economic impact of them. An important conclusion of this work is that the profitability and economic viability of sea bass grow-out farms suffering recurrent outbreaks of diseases caused by different pathogens depend on the farm typology (farm size) as well as the decisions taken by owners/investors about the size of the fish produced and sold in the market.

Our estimations show that as the larger is the farm and the size of the fish produced, the larger are the direct cost of a disease outbreak. However, the economic impact on the net operating profit is significantly worse as smaller is the farm and smaller the fish produced. The conclusions of this research stress the need for small producers to pay attention and devote resources to prevent and treat disease outbreaks.